The NYTimes Daily featured a poem by Roger Cohen titled, “I forgive you, New York,” and in it the author walks through the abandoned city and forgives it it for all the things it used to find so unappealing, like urine and pigeons, tourists and cafes that serve exclusively oatmeal. He does this out of effort to beg back the life of the city, to have the good back, which he is saying, without saying is worth all the rainy days and no cabs and trains that never come.
I started missing comedy last week and this week I started missing the scene. I didn’t think I would because it drives me crazy. I often wonder why I waste my time and I get my feelings hurt a lot. I don’t feel like I belong and also I feel like I belong more there than anywhere. I am grateful to everyone on the scene, even the ones who frustrate me the most. WHen this all started I was so grateful to not have to deal with any interpersonal drama. I care too much about being liked for someone who is generally, not liked. I want things to be different and I tried to through BBQs when I first got on the scene and stay neutral, stay out of it. Everyone who was running shows had years long beef and it was tough to keep straight who worked with who and what the riles were. It was a shock coming from the Kansas of the Vermont Comedy Scene, where women were prevalent and so were showcases. There was a general friendliness and everyone tried to be friends. I didn’t feel like I belonged at all there either, like anywhere and so I kept my distance and found ways to keep people away. Despite a fear of belonging and through there were times it was difficult to go to Liquid and sometimes I still feel awkward and unwanted on the patio, while everyone smokes, sometimes I don’t feel like that. Sometimes I feel like I have friends and a place and ground to stand on. The scene has brought me up as best it could.
The airing of the gripes below, only serve to fill this page, as the catharsis was in writing them out, as I have been unable to express them directly. Some of these are things seriously bother me but I haven’t been able to confront them, some are just old nagging things I don’t think about ever but which can up here and some of it I just good ol’ simple petty jealousy. For each gripe I wrote out, I remembered in contrast multiple things I was grateful for. Liquid aka Jeremy and Sophie, for example, has moved me to feature, twice! There was time there that never felt like it would happen. Crescent Brewery’s open mic was the only place I felt real comfort when I first moved to Idaho and Leif ran that mic for a long time. Jen was the first person to book me in Boise on her and Emma’s Yum Yum show, she introduced me to Alvin Williams who has been a great friend and both of them believed in me when it didn’t feel like anyone did. Emma booked the shit out of me that second year and took me on the road to feature once. Even Brian Lee set up a gig and paid me. All the comics mentioned have produced shows, paid me (sometimes) or been on shows and made people laugh and have made me laugh. Thats what I miss most. So fingers crossed no one sees this and thinks I mean harm, I mean I still need at least to be able to pretend that I am loved.
Dear Boise Comedy Scene,
I forgive you Liquid Laughs for the Wednesday open mic politics. I forgive you Dustin Chalifoux for being the first comedian I saw in Boise at the Wednesday open mic and tfor screaming “Fuck Lady Business.” Lady Business, I forgive you for hosting that mic for three years and for the period of time you didn’t like me but I never knew why. I forgive the Russian guy who hit on me that night and the white dude in flannel who cat-called me when I got on stage. I forgive you Boise Comedy Scene for all the open mics thereafter that numbed my mind with the dark, talentless and delusional voids of humanity. Speaking of which, I forgive you Leif Skyving for not playing Scrooge when you said you would during our Christmas themed show but rather doing your stupid old set and passively flipping me off with your Johnny Cash shirt. I forgive you Emmanuel for all those themed shows you “helped” with but which I did most of the work and had to drive your drunk ass to. I forgive you, Jeremy Nelson and Sean Peabody for arranging chairs throughout my first and last set at the Playhouse open mic, though you made up 1/3 of the audience.
I forgive you Taber Johnson for showing up 45 minutes late to my happy hour show because one of your rats died. I hope you forgive me for not paying you. I forgive you Jermey for paying me $100.00, plus food and drink to host six shows over four days for two years. I hope you forgive me for ordering the salmon everytime. I forgive you Eric Cole for always commenting on my appearance in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable but also shows me that you can’t read body language or subtle cues and so will never get any. I forgive you Sophie Hughes for giving Eric Cole so many spots on so many shows. I forgive you Emma for not wanting to admit we are friends around the comedy scene. I forgive you Jen for introducing me to Brain Lee. I forgive you Brain Lee for disrespecting me and then taking me off your show when I wouldn’t back down but not telling me about it and asking Montana to do it instead so I had to find out from him. I forgive you Montana Burke for taking that gig.
I forgive you Jack Gunn for how when you talk to me you lean away in fear like people now do because of the coronavirus. Along those lines I forgive you Chris Sharma for always looking like a deer in the headlights when you talk to me and you Casey Rocket for never being able to make eye contact with me at all. I forgive you KC Hunt for serial dating women interested in or new to comedy and for being perfectly respectful to me but pissing everyone else off so I am perpetually confused about how to be around you. I forgive you Derek Hayden for always taking the boys side and arguing with me on things I am clearly right about. I forgive you boys club for never inviting me on your podcasts or telling me congratulations for a gig or good set or asking how anything went or giving tips on jokes. I forgive you Jack Turnage for ascending through that boys club just by being young and cocky and laughing uncomfortably at your own uncomfortable jokes.
I forgive all the people who got up on stage and seriously offended the audience and walked tables of people right before I got on stage. I forgive you Boise Comedy Scene for all the times I’ve been put up last on a list of 20 plus comics. Alissia, I forgive you for stirring shit up and telling funny meth addict mom jokes in your first year of stand-up. I forgive you Kat Lizarga for being better styled and more likable than I was at your age and will ever hope to be. I forgive you Chris Sundberg for giving the firmest of hugs while wearing that shirt with spoon AND a fork on it. I forgive you Olek for still being in Boise considering your talent. I forgive you Victor for having parents who loved you. I forgive you Cayden for stealing my sharpie. I forgive all the people who left the Boise scene and are doing well in comedy in other places and for those who have left the scene and are doing better for themselves in life, and for all the people who have left the scene who weren’t funny and all the people who are still in it who are.
I forgive you, I miss you, I look forward to seeing you again soon,
Beth Norton
P.s. I hope you will forgive me for all the times I pushed you away, choose a relationship instead of you, for engaging in shit talking, for not speaking up, for yelling, for the times I deviated from my set when I should’ve stuck to my material, for not sticking around until the end of a mic, for not giving you the benefit of the doubt, for not being myself at times and for not being a better friend at others. I promise to do better and I promise not to abandon you again and I promise to write some fucking jokes.
